“[The decision] also calls upon the [OPCW] Secretariatto put in place arrangements “to identify the perpetratorsof the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic by identifying and reporting on all information potentially relevant to the origin of those chemical weapons in those instances in which the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission determines or has determined that use or likely use occurred, and cases for which the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism has not issued a report”.

The leak follows other alarming developments concerning the OPCW’s report on Douma, which suggest an organisation in severe crisis. Last May, another leak from the OPCW’s HQ in the Hague cast grave doubt on claims that gas cylinders found at the Douma site had been dropped from the air, a vital part of the Western case against Syria.

An OPCW engineering and ballistics expert called Ian Henderson (who was not the leaker) had strongly suggested that two gas cylinders found in Douma and examined by the OPCW’s Fact-Finding Missionhad been ‘manually placed’.